The
History of England from the Accession of James IIBy Thomas Babington MacAulayChapter 1 Part 5

Charles the First
was a captive: Charles the Second would be at liberty. Charles
the First was an object of suspicion and dislike to a large
proportion of those who yet shuddered at the thought of slaying him:
Charles the Second would excite all the interest which belongs to
distressed youth and innocence. It is impossible to believe that
considerations so obvious, and so important, escaped the most
profound politician of that age. The truth is that Cromwell had,
at one time, meant to mediate between the throne and the
Parliament, and to reorganise the distracted State by the power of
the sword, under the sanction of the royal name. In this design he
persisted till he was compelled to abandon it by the refractory
temper of the soldiers, and by the incurable duplicity of the
King. A party in the camp began to clamour for the head of the
traitor, who was for treating with Agag. Conspiracies were
formed. Threats of impeachment were loudly uttered. A mutiny
broke out, which all the vigour and resolution of Oliver could
hardly quell. And though, by a judicious mixture of severity and
kindness, he succeeded in restoring order, he saw that it would be
in the highest degree difficult and perilous to contend against
the rage of warriors, who regarded the fallen tyrant as their
foe, and as the foe of their God. At the same time it became
more evident than ever that the King could not be trusted. The vices
of Charles had grown upon him. They were, indeed, vices
which difficulties and perplexities generally bring out in the
strongest light. Cunning is the natural defence of the weak. A prince,
therefore, who is habitually a deceiver when at the height of
power, is not likely to learn frankness in the midst of
embarrassments and distresses. Charles was not only a most unscrupulous
but a most unlucky dissembler. There never was a politician to
whom so many frauds and falsehoods were brought home by undeniable
evidence. He publicly recognised the Houses at Westminster as a
legal Parliament, and, at the same time, made a private minute in
council declaring the recognition null. He publicly
disclaimed all thought of calling in foreign aid against his people: he
privately solicited aid from France, from Denmark, and from Lorraine.
He publicly denied that he employed Papists: at the same time
he privately sent to his generals directions to employ every
Papist that would serve. He publicly took the sacrament at
Oxford, as a pledge that he never would even connive at Popery. He
privately assured his wife, that he intended to tolerate Popery in
England; and he authorised Lord Glamorgan to promise that
Popery should be established in Ireland. Then he attempted to clear
himself at his agent's expense. Glamorgan received, in the
Royal handwriting, reprimands intended to be read by others,
and eulogies which were to be seen only by himself. To such
an extent, indeed, had insincerity now tainted the King's whole
nature, that his most devoted friends could not refrain from
complaining to each other, with bitter grief and shame, of his
crooked politics. His defeats, they said, gave them less pain than his
intrigues. Since he had been a prisoner, there was no section of
the victorious party which had not been the object both of his
flatteries and of his machinations; but never was he more
unfortunate than when he attempted at once to cajole and to undermine
Cromwell.

Cromwell had to
determine whether he would put to hazard the attachment of his
party, the attachment of his army, his own greatness, nay his
own life, in an attempt which would probably have been vain, to
save a prince whom no engagement could bind. With many
struggles and misgivings, and probably not without many prayers, the
decision was made. Charles was left to his fate. The military saints
resolved that, in defiance of the old laws of the realm, and of the
almost universal sentiment of the nation, the King should
expiate his crimes with his blood. He for a time expected a death
like that of his unhappy predecessors, Edward the Second and
Richard the Second. But he was in no danger of such treason.
Those who had him in their gripe were not midnight stabbers. What
they did they did in order that it might be a spectacle to
heaven and earth, and that it might be held in everlasting
remembrance. They enjoyed keenly the very scandal which they gave.
That the ancient constitution and the public opinion of England
were directly opposed to regicide made regicide seem
strangely fascinating to a party bent on effecting a complete
political and social revolution. In order to accomplish their
purpose, it was necessary that they should first break in pieces
every part of the machinery of the government; and this necessity
was rather agreeable than painful to them. The Commons passed a
vote tending to accommodation with the King. The soldiers excluded
the majority by force. The Lords unanimously rejected the
proposition that the King should be brought to trial. Their house
was instantly closed. No court, known to the law, would take on
itself the office of judging the fountain of justice. A
revolutionary tribunal was created. That tribunal pronounced Charles
a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy; and his
head was severed from his shoulders, before thousands of
spectators, in front of the banqueting hall of his own palace.

In no long time it
became manifest that those political and religious zealots,
to whom this deed is to be ascribed, had committed, not
only a crime, but an error. They had given to a prince, hitherto
known to his people chiefly by his faults, an opportunity of
displaying, on a great theatre, before the eyes of all nations and
all ages, some qualities which irresistibly call forth the
admiration and love of mankind, the high spirit of a gallant gentleman,
the patience and meekness of a penitent Christian. Nay,
they had so contrived their revenge that the very man whose life had
been a series of attacks on the liberties of England now seemed
to die a martyr in the cause of those liberties. No
demagogue ever produced such an impression on the public mind as the
captive King, who, retaining in that extremity all his regal
dignity, and confronting death with dauntless courage, gave
utterance to the feelings of his oppressed people, manfully refused
to plead before a court unknown to the law, appealed from
military violence to the principles of the constitution,
asked by what right the House of Commons had been purged of its most
respectable members and the House of Lords deprived of its
legislative functions, and told his weeping hearers that he
was defending, not only his own cause, but theirs. His long
misgovernment, his innumerable perfidies, were forgotten. His
memory was, in the minds of the great majority of his subjects,
associated with those free institutions which he had, during many
years, laboured to destroy: for those free institutions had
perished with him, and, amidst the mournful silence of a
community kept down by arms, had been defended by his voice alone.
From that day began a reaction in favour of monarchy and of
the exiled house, reaction which never ceased till the throne
had again been set up in all its old dignity.

At first, however,
the slayers of the King seemed to have derived new energy from
that sacrament of blood by which they had bound themselves closely
together, and separated themselves for ever from the great
body of their countrymen. England was declared a commonwealth. The
House of Commons, reduced to a small number of members, was
nominally the supreme power in the state. In fact, the army and its
great chief governed everything. Oliver had made his choice. He had
kept the hearts of his soldiers, and had broken with almost
every other class of his fellow citizens. Beyond the limits
of his camps and fortresses he could scarcely be said to have a
party. Those elements of force which, when the civil war broke
out, had appeared arrayed against each other, were combined
against him; all the Cavaliers, the great majority of the Roundheads,
the Anglican Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Roman Catholic
Church, England, Scotland, Ireland. Yet such, was his genius and
resolution that he was able to overpower and crush everything
that crossed his path, to make himself more absolute master of
his country than any of her legitimate Kings had been, and to
make his country more dreaded and respected than she had been
during many generations under the rule of her legitimate Kings.

England had
already ceased to struggle. But the two other kingdoms which had
been governed by the Stuarts were hostile to the new republic.
The Independent party was equally odious to the Roman Catholics of
Ireland and to the Presbyterians of Scotland. Both those
countries, lately in rebellion against Charles the First, now
acknowledged the authority of Charles the Second. But everything
yielded to the vigour and ability of Cromwell. In a few months he
subjugated Ireland, as Ireland had never been subjugated during
the five centuries of slaughter which had elapsed since the
landing of the first Norman settlers. He resolved to put an
end to that conflict of races and religions which had so long
distracted the island, by making the English and Protestant
population decidedly predominant. For this end he gave the rein to
the fierce enthusiasm of his followers, waged war resembling
that which Israel waged on the Canaanites, smote the idolaters with
the edge of the sword, so that great cities were left without
inhabitants, drove many thousands to the Continent, shipped
off many thousands to the West Indies, and supplied the void
thus made by pouring in numerous colonists, of Saxon blood, and
of Calvinistic faith. Strange to say, under that iron rule, the
conquered country began to wear an outward face of prosperity.
Districts, which had recently been as wild as those where the first
white settlers of Connecticut were contending with the red men,
were in a few years transformed into the likeness of Kent
and Norfolk. New buildings, roads, and plantations were
everywhere seen. The rent of estates rose fast; and soon the
English landowners began to complain that they were met in every
market by the products of Ireland, and to clamour for protecting
laws.

From Ireland the
victorious chief, who was now in name, as he had long been in
reality, Lord General of the armies of the Commonwealth,
turned to Scotland. The Young King was there. He had consented to
profess himself a Presbyterian, and to subscribe the Covenant; and,
in return for these concessions, the austere Puritans who bore
sway at Edinburgh had permitted him to assume the crown, and to
hold, under their inspection and control, a solemn and
melancholy court. This mock royalty was of short duration. In two
great battles Cromwell annihilated the military force of Scotland.
Charles fled for his life, and, with extreme difficulty,
escaped the fate of his father. The ancient kingdom of the Stuarts was
reduced, for the first time, to profound submission. Of
that independence, so manfully defended against the mightiest and
ablest of the Plantagenets, no vestige was left. The English
Parliament made laws for Scotland. English judges held
assizes in Scotland. Even that stubborn Church, which has held its own
against so many governments, scarce dared to utter an audible
murmur.

Thus far there had
been at least the semblance of harmony between the warriors who
had subjugated Ireland and Scotland and the politicians who
sate at Westminster: but the alliance which had been cemented by
danger was dissolved by victory. The Parliament forgot that it was
but the creature of the army. The army was less disposed than
ever to submit to the dictation of the Parliament. Indeed
the few members who made up what was contemptuously
called the Rump of the House of Commons had no more claim than
the military chiefs to be esteemed the representatives of
the nation. The dispute was soon brought to a decisive issue.
Cromwell filled the House with armed men. The Speaker was pulled
out of his chair, the mace taken from the table, the room
cleared, and the door locked. The nation, which loved neither of
the contending parties, but which was forced, in its own despite,
to respect the capacity and resolution of theGeneral, looked on
with patience, if not with complacency.

King, Lords, and
Commons, had now in turn been vanquished and destroyed; and
Cromwell seemed to be left the sole heir of the powers of all
three. Yet were certain limitations still imposed on him by the very
army to which he owed his immense authority. That singular body
of men was, for the most part, composed of zealous
republicans. In the act of enslaving their country, they had deceived
themselves into the belief that they were emancipating her.
The book which they venerated furnished them with a precedent
which was frequently in their mouths. It was true that the
ignorant and ungrateful nation murmured against its deliverers. Even
so had another chosen nation murmured against the leader who
brought it, by painful and dreary paths, from the house of bondage
to the land flowing with milk and honey. Yet had that leader
rescued his brethren in spite of themselves; nor had he shrunk from
making terrible examples of those who contemned the proffered
freedom, and pined for the fleshpots, the taskmasters, and
the idolatries of Egypt. The object of the warlike saints who
surrounded Cromwell was the settlement of a free and pious
commonwealth. For that end they were ready to employ, without
scruple, any means, however violent and lawless. It was not
impossible, therefore, to establish by their aid a dictatorship such
as no King had ever exercised: but it was probable that
their aid would be at once withdrawn from a ruler who, even under
strict constitutional restraints, should venture to assume the
kingly name and dignity.

The sentiments of
Cromwell were widely different. He was not what he had been; nor
would it be just to consider the change which his views had
undergone as the effect merely of selfish ambition. He had, when he
came up to the Long Parliament, brought with him from his rural
retreat little knowledge of books, no experience of great affairs,
and a temper galled by the long tyranny of the government and of
the hierarchy. He had, during the thirteen years which
followed, gone through a political education of no common kind. He
had been a chief actor in a succession of revolutions. He
had been long the soul, and at last the head, of a party. He had
commanded armies, won battles, negotiated treaties, subdued,
pacified, and regulated kingdoms. It would have been strange
indeed if his notions had been still the same as in the days
when his mind was principally occupied by his fields and his
religion, and when the greatest events which diversified the
course of his life were a cattle fair or a prayer meeting at
Huntingdon. He saw that some schemes of innovation for which he had once
been zealous, whether good or bad in themselves, were
opposed to the general feeling of the country, and that, if he
persevered in those schemes, he had nothing before him but
constant troubles, which must he suppressed by the constant use of
the sword. He therefore wished to restore, in all essentials, that
ancient constitution which the majority of the people had always
loved, and for which they now pined. The course afterwards taken
by Monk was not open to Cromwell. The memory of one terrible day
separated the great regicide for ever from the House of Stuart.
What remained was that he should mount the ancient English
throne, and reign according to the ancient English polity. If
he could effect this, he might hope that the wounds of the
lacerated State would heal fast. Great numbers of honest and quiet
men would speedily rally round him. Those Royalists whose
attachment was rather to institutions than to persons, to the
kingly office than to King Charles the First or King Charles the
Second, would soon kiss the hand of King Oliver. The peers, who now
remained sullenly at their country houses, and refused to take
any part in public affairs, would, when summoned to their House by
the writ of a King in possession, gladly resume their ancient
functions. Northumberland and Bedford, Manchester and Pembroke,
would be proud to bear the crown and the spurs, the sceptre and the
globe, before the restorer of aristocracy. A sentiment of
loyalty would gradually bind the people to the new dynasty; and, on
the decease of the founder of that dynasty, the royal dignity
might descend with general acquiescence to his posterity.

The ablest
Royalists were of opinion that these views were correct, and that,
if Cromwell had been permitted to follow his own judgment, the
exiled line would never have been restored. But his plan was
directly opposed to the feelings of the only class which he dared not
offend. The name of King was hateful to the soldiers. Some of
them were indeed unwilling to see the administration in
the hands of any single person. The great majority, however,
were disposed to support their general, as elective first
magistrate of a commonwealth, against all factions which might resist
his authority: but they would not consent that he should assume
the regal title, or that the dignity, which was the just reward of
his personal merit, should be declared hereditary in his
family. All that was left to him was to give to the new republic a
constitution as like the constitution of the old monarchy as
the army would bear. That his elevation to power might not seem to
be merely his own act, he convoked a council, composed partly of
persons on whose support he could depend, and partly of persons
whose opposition he might safely defy. This assembly, which he
called a Parliament, and which the populace nicknamed, from
one of the most conspicuous members, Barebonesa's Parliament, after
exposing itself during a short time to the public contempt,
surrendered back to the General the powers which it had received
from him, and left him at liberty to frame a plan of government.

His plan bore,
from the first, a considerable resemblance to the old English
constitution: but, in a few years, he thought it safe to proceed
further, and to restore almost every part of the ancient system
under hew names and forms. The title of King was not revived; but
the kingly prerogatives were intrusted to a Lord High Protector.
The sovereign was called not His Majesty, but His Highness. He was
not crowned and anointed in Westminster Abbey, but was solemnly
enthroned, girt with a sword of state, clad in a robe of purple,
and presented with a rich Bible, in Westminster Hall. His office
was not declared hereditary: but he was permitted to name
his successor; and none could doubt that he would name his
Son.

A House of Commons
was a necessary part of the new polity. In constituting this
body, the Protector showed a wisdom and a public spirit
which were not duly appreciated by his contemporaries.
The vices of the old representative system, though by no means
so serious as they afterwards became, had already been
remarked by farsighted men. Cromwell reformed that system on the same
principles on which Mr. Pitt, a hundred and thirty years
later, attempted to reform it, and on which it was at length reformed
in our own times. Small boroughs were disfranchised even
more unsparingly than in 1832; and the number of county members
was greatly increased. Very few unrepresented towns had yet
grown into importance. Of those towns the most considerable were
Manchester, Leeds, and Halifax. Representatives were given to all
three. An addition was made to the number of the members for
the capital. The elective franchise was placed on such a footing
that every man of substance, whether possessed of freehold estates
in land or not, had a vote for the county in which he resided.
A few Scotchmen and a few of the English colonists settled
in Ireland were summoned to the assembly which was to legislate,
at Westminster, for every part of the British isles.

To create a House
of Lords was a less easy task. Democracy does not require the
support of prescription. Monarchy has often stood without that
support. But a patrician order is the work of time. Oliver found
already existing a nobility, opulent, highly considered, and as
popular with the commonalty as any nobility has ever been. Had
he, as King of England, commanded the peers to meet him in
Parliament according to the old usage of the realm, many of them would
undoubtedly have obeyed the call. This he could not do; and
it was to no purpose that he offered to the chiefs of
illustrious families seats in his new senate. They conceived that
they could not accept a nomination to an upstart assembly without
renouncing their birthright and betraying their order. The
Protector was, therefore, under the necessity of filling his Upper
House with new men who, during the late stirring times,
had made themselves conspicuous. This was the least happy of his
contrivances, and displeased all parties. The Levellers were
angry with him for instituting a privileged class. The multitude,
which felt respect and fondness for the great historical names
of the land, laughed without restraint at a House of Lords, in
which lucky draymen and shoemakers were seated, to which
few of the old nobles were invited, and from which almost all
those old nobles who were invited turned disdainfully away.

How Oliver's
Parliaments were constituted, however, was practically of
little moment: for he possessed the means of conducting the
administration without their support, and in defiance of their
opposition. His wish seems to have been to govern
constitutionally, and to substitute the empire of the laws for that of the
sword. But he soon found that, hated as he was, both by Royalists
and Presbyterians, he could be safe only by being absolute.
The first House of Commons which the people elected by his
command, questioned his authority, and was dissolved without
having passed a single act. His second House of Commons, though it
recognised him as Protector, and would gladly have made him
King, obstinately refused to acknowledge his new Lords. He had no
course left but to dissolve the Parliament. "God," he
exclaimed, at parting, "be judge between you and me!"

Yet was the energy
of the Protector's administration in nowise relaxed by these
dissensions. Those soldiers who would not suffer him to assume the
kingly title stood by him when he ventured on acts of power, as
high as any English King has ever attempted. The government,
therefore, though in form a republic, was in truth a despotism,
moderated only by the wisdom, the sobriety, and the
magnanimity of the despot. The country was divided into military
districts. Those districts were placed under the command of Major Generals.
Every insurrectionary movement was promptly put down and
punished. The fear inspired by the power of the sword, in so
strong, steady, and expert a hand, quelled the spirit both of
Cavaliers and Levellers. The loyal gentry declared that they were
still as ready as ever to risk their lives for the old government and
the old dynasty, if there were the slightest hope of success:
but to rush, at the head of their serving men and tenants, on
the pikes of brigades victorious in a hundred battles and
sieges, would be a frantic waste of innocent and honourable blood.
Both Royalists and Republicans, having no hope in open
resistance, began to revolve dark schemes of assassination: but
the Protector's intelligence was good: his vigilance was
unremitting; and, whenever he moved beyond the walls of his
palace, the drawn swords and cuirasses of his trusty bodyguards
encompassed him thick on every side.

Had he been a
cruel, licentious, and rapacious prince, the nation might have found
courage in despair, and might have made a convulsive effort
to free itself from military domination. But the grievances
which the country suffered, though such as excited serious
discontent, were by no means such as impel great masses of men to stake
their lives, their fortunes, and the welfare of their families
against fearful odds. The taxation, though heavier than it had been
under the Stuarts, was not heavy when compared with that of the
neighbouring states and with the resources of England. Property
was secure. Even the Cavalier, who refrained from giving
disturbance to the new settlement, enjoyed in peace whatever the civil
troubles had left hem. The laws were violated only in cases
where the safety of the Protector's person and government was
concerned. Justice was administered between man and man with an
exactness and purity not before known. Under no English government
since the Reformation, had there been so little religious
persecution. The unfortunate Roman Catholics, indeed, were held
to be scarcely within the pale of Christian charity. But the
clergy of the fallen Anglican Church were suffered to
celebrate their worship on condition that they would abstain from
preaching about politics. Even the Jews, whose public worship
had, ever since the thirteenth century, been interdicted, were,
in spite of the strong opposition of jealous traders and
fanatical theologians, permitted to build a synagogue in London.

The Protector's
foreign policy at the same time extorted the ungracious
approbation of those who most detested him. The Cavaliers could
scarcely refrain from wishing that one who had done so much to
raise the fame of the nation had been a legitimate King;
and the Republicans were forced to own that the tyrant suffered
none but himself to wrong his country, and that, if he had robbed
her of liberty, he had at least given her glory in exchange. After
half a century during which England had been of scarcely more
weight in European politics than Venice or Saxony, she at
once became the most formidable power in the world, dictated
terms of peace to the United Provinces, avenged the common
injuries of Christendom on the pirates of Barbary, vanquished the
Spaniards by land and sea, seized one of the finest West Indian
islands, and acquired on the Flemish coast a fortress which
consoled the national pride for the loss of Calais. She was
supreme on the ocean. She was the head of the Protestant
interest. All the reformed Churches scattered over Roman Catholic
kingdoms acknowledged Cromwell as their guardian. The Huguenots of
Languedoc, the shepherds who, in the hamlets of the Alps.
professed a Protestantism older than that of Augsburg, were secured from
oppression by the mere terror of his great name The Pope himself
was forced to preach humanity and moderation to Popish princes.
For a voice which seldom threatened in vain had declared that,
unless favour were shown to the people of God, the English guns
should be heard in the Castle of Saint Angelo. In truth, there was
nothing which Cromwell had, for his own sake and that of his
family, so much reason to desire as a general religious war in
Europe. In such a war he must have been the captain of the
Protestant armies. The heart of England would have been with him. His
victories would have been hailed with an unanimous
enthusiasm unknown in the country since the rout of the Armada, and would
have effaced the stain which one act, condemned by the general
voice of the nation, has left on his splendid fame. Unhappily
for him he had no opportunity of displaying his admirable military
talents, except against the inhabitants of the British isles.

While he lived his
power stood firm, an object of mingled aversion,
admiration, and dread to his subjects. Few indeed loved his government;
but those who hated it most hated it less than they feared it.
Had it been a worse government, it might perhaps have been
overthrown in spite of all its strength. Had it been a weaker government,
it would certainly have been overthrown in spite of all its
merits. But it had moderation enough to abstain from those
oppressions which drive men mad; and it had a force and energy which
none but men driven mad by oppression would venture to
encounter.

It has often been
affirmed, but with little reason, that Oliver died at a time
fortunate for his renown, and that, if his life had been
prolonged, it would probably have closed amidst disgraces and
disasters. It is certain that he was, to the last, honoured by his
soldiers, obeyed by the whole population of the British islands,
and dreaded by all foreign powers, that he was laid among the
ancient sovereigns of England with funeral pomp such as London had
never before seen, and that he was succeeded by his son Richard
as quietly as any King had ever been succeeded by any Prince of
Wales.

During five
months, the administration of Richard Cromwell went on so tranquilly
and regularly that all Europe believed him to be firmly established
on the chair of state. In truth his situation was in some
respects much more advantageous than that of his father. The young
man had made no enemy. His hands were unstained by civil blood.
The Cavaliers themselves allowed him to be an honest,
good-natured gentleman. The Presbyterian party, powerful both in numbers
and in wealth, had been at deadly feud with the late Protector,
but was disposed to regard the present Protector with favour. That
party had always been desirous to see the old civil polity of
the realm restored with some clearer definitions and some stronger
safeguards for public liberty, but had many reasons for
dreading the restoration of the old family. Richard was the very man
for politicians of this description. His humanity,
ingenuousness, and modesty, the mediocrity of his abilities, and the
docility with which he submitted to the guidance of
persons wiser than himself, admirably qualified him to be the head of
a limited monarchy.

For a time it
seemed highly probable that he would, under the direction of able
advisers, effect what his father had attempted in vain. A
Parliament was called, and the writs were directed after the old
fashion. The small boroughs which had recently been disfranchised
regained their lost privilege: Manchester, Leeds, and Halifax ceased
to return members; and the county of York was again limited to
two knights. It may seem strange to a generation which has been
excited almost to madness by the question of parliamentary
reform that great shires and towns should have submitted with
patience and even with complacency, to this change: but though
speculative men might, even in that age, discern the vices
of the old representative system, and predict that those vices
would, sooner or later, produce serious practical evil,
the practical evil had not yet been felt. Oliver's
representative system, on the other hand, though constructed on
sound principles, was not popular. Both the events in which it
originated, and the effects which it had produced, prejudiced men
against it. It had sprung from military violence. It had been
fruitful of nothing but disputes. The whole nation was sick of
government by the sword, and pined for government by the law. The
restoration, therefore, even of anomalies and abuses, which were
in strict conformity with the law, and which had been destroyed
by the sword, gave general satisfaction.

Among the Commons
there was a strong opposition, consisting partly of avowed
Republicans, and partly of concealed Royalists: but a large and
steady majority appeared to be favourable to the plan of reviving
the old civil constitution under a new dynasty. Richard was
solemnly recognised as first magistrate. The Commons not only consented
to transact business with Oliver's Lords, but passed a vote
acknowledging the right of those nobles who had, in the late troubles,
taken the side of public liberty, to sit in the Upper House of
Parliament without any new creation.

Thus far the
statesmen by whose advice Richard acted had been successful. Almost
all the parts of the government were now constituted as
they had been constituted at the commencement of the civil war. Had
the Protector and the Parliament been suffered to proceed
undisturbed, there can be little doubt that an order of things similar
to that which was afterwards established under the House of
Hanover would have been established under the House of Cromwell. But
there was in the state a power more than sufficient to deal
with Protector and Parliament together. Over the soldiers
Richard had no authority except that which he derived from the
great name which he had inherited. He had never led them to
victory. He had never even borne arms. All his tastes and habits were
pacific. Nor were his opinions and feelings on religious subjects
approved by the military saints. That he was a good man he
evinced by proofs more satisfactory than deep groans or long sermons,
by humility and suavity when he was at the height of human
greatness, and by cheerful resignation under cruel wrongs and
misfortunes: but the cant then common in every guardroom gave him
a disgust which he had not always the prudence to conceal. The
officers who had the principal influence among the troops
stationed near London were not his friends. They were men distinguished
by valour and conduct in the field, but destitute of the
wisdom and civil courage which had been conspicuous in
their deceased leader. Some of them were honest, but fanatical,
Independents and Republicans. Of this class Fleetwood was the
representative. Others were impatient to be what Oliver had
been. His rapid elevation, his prosperity and glory, his
inauguration in the Hall, and his gorgeous obsequies in the Abbey, had
inflamed their imagination. They were as well born as he, and as
well educated: they could not understand why they were not as
worthy to wear the purple robe, and to wield the sword of state;
and they pursued the objects of their wild ambition, not,
like him, with patience, vigilance, sagacity, and determination, but
with the restlessness and irresolution characteristic of
aspiring mediocrity. Among these feeble copies of a great
original the most conspicuous was Lambert.

On the very day of
Richard's accession the officers began to conspire against
their new master. The good understanding which existed between
him and his Parliament hastened the crisis. Alarm and resentment
spread through the camp. Both the religious and the professional
feelings of the army were deeply wounded. It seemed that the
Independents were to be subjected to the Presbyterians, and
that the men of the sword were to be subjected to the men of the
gown. A coalition was formed between the military
malecontents and the republican minority of the House of Commons. It may
well be doubted whether Richard could have triumphed over
that coalition, even if he had inherited his father's clear
judgment and iron courage. It is certain that simplicity and
meekness like his were not the qualities which the conjuncture
required. He fell ingloriously, and without a struggle. He was
used by the army as an instrument for the purpose of
dissolving the Parliament, and was then contemptuously thrown aside. The
officers gratified their republican allies by declaring that the
expulsion of the Rump had been illegal, and by inviting that
assembly to resume its functions. The old Speaker and a quorum of
the old members came together, and were proclaimed, amidst
the scarcely stifled derision and execration of the whole
nation, the supreme power in the commonwealth. It was at the same
time expressly declared that there should be no first magistrate,
and no House of Lords.

But this state of
things could not last. On the day on which the long Parliament
revived, revived also its old quarrel with the army. Again the
Rump forgot that it owed its existence to the pleasure of the
soldiers, and began to treat them as subjects. Again the doors of
the House of Commons were closed by military violence; and a
provisional government, named by the officers, assumed the
direction of affairs.

Meanwhile the
sense of great evils, and the strong apprehension of still greater
evils close at hand, had at length produced an alliance between
the Cavaliers and the Presbyterians. Some Presbyterians had,
indeed, been disposed to such an alliance even before the death
of Charles the First: but it was not till after the fall of
Richard Cromwell that the whole party became eager for the
restoration of the royal house. There was no longer any reasonable hope
that the old constitution could be reestablished under a new
dynasty. One choice only was left, the Stuarts or the army. The banished
family had committed great faults; but it had dearly expiated
those faults, and had undergone a long, and, it might be hoped, a
salutary training in the school of adversity. It was probable
that Charles the Second would take warning by the fate of Charles
the First. But, be this as it might, the dangers which threatened
the country were such that, in order to avert them, some
opinions might well be compromised, and some risks might well be
incurred. It seemed but too likely that England would fall under
the most odious and degrading of all kinds of government, under
a government uniting all the evils of despotism to all the evils
of anarchy. Anything was preferable to the yoke of a succession of
incapable and inglorious tyrants, raised to power, like the
Deys of Barbary, by military revolutions recurring at short
intervals. Lambert seemed likely to be the first of these
rulers; but within a year Lambert might give place to Desborough, and
Desborough to Harrison. As often as the truncheon was
transferred from one feeble hand to another, the nation would be
pillaged for the purpose of bestowing a fresh donative on the
troops. If the Presbyterians obstinately stood aloof from the
Royalists, the state was lost; and men might well doubt whether, by
the combined exertions of Presbyterians and Royalists, it
could be saved. For the dread of that invincible army was on all
the inhabitants of the island; and the Cavaliers, taught by a
hundred disastrous fields how little numbers can effect against
discipline, were even more completely cowed than the Roundheads.

While the soldiers
remained united, all the plots and risings of the malecontents
were ineffectual. But a few days after the second expulsion
of the Rump, came tidings which gladdened the hearts of all who
were attached either to monarchy or to liberty: That mighty force
which had, during many years, acted as one man, and which, while
so acting, had been found irresistible, was at length divided
against itself. The army of Scotland had done good service to the
Commonwealth, and was in the highest state of efficiency. It had
borne no part in the late revolutions, and had seen them with
indignation resembling the indignation which the Roman legions
posted on the Danube and the Euphrates felt, when they learned that
the empire had been put up to sale by the Praetorian Guards.
It was intolerable that certain regiments should, merely
because they happened to be quartered near Westminster, take
on themselves to make and unmake several governments in the
course of half a year. If it were fit that the state should be
regulated by the soldiers, those soldiers who upheld the English
ascendency on the north of the Tweed were as well entitled to a
voice as those who garrisoned the Tower of London. There
appears to have been less fanaticism among the troops stationed
in Scotland than in any other part of the army; and their general,
George Monk, was himself the very opposite of a zealot. He had
at the commencement of the civil war, borne arms for the King, had
been made prisoner by the Roundheads, had then accepted a
commission from the Parliament, and, with very slender pretensions to
saintship, had raised himself to high commands by his courage and
professional skill. He had been an useful servant to both the
Protectors, and had quietly acquiesced when the officers at
Westminster had pulled down Richard and restored the Long Parliament,
and would perhaps have acquiesced as quietly in the second
expulsion of the Long Parliament, if the provisional government had
abstained from giving him cause of offence and apprehension. For
his nature was cautious and somewhat sluggish; nor was he at all
disposed to hazard sure and moderate advantages for the chalice of
obtaining even the most splendid success. He seems to have been
impelled to attack the new rulers of the Commonwealth less
by the hope that, if he overthrew them, he should become
great, than by the fear that, if he submitted to them, he should
not even be secure. Whatever were his motives, he declared himself
the champion of the oppressed civil power, refused to
acknowledge the usurped authority of the provisional government, and,
at the head of seven thousand veterans, marched into England.

This step was the
signal for a general explosion. The people everywhere refused
to pay taxes. The apprentices of the City assembled by
thousands and clamoured for a free Parliament. The fleet sailed up
the Thames, and declared against the tyranny of the soldiers. The
soldiers, no longer under the control of one commanding mind,
separated into factions. Every regiment, afraid lest it should be
left alone a mark for the vengeance of the oppressed nation,
hastened to make a separate peace. Lambert, who had hastened
northward to encounter the army of Scotland, was abandoned by his
troops, and became a prisoner. During thirteen years the civil
power had, in every conflict, been compelled to yield to the
military power. The military power now humbled itself before the
civil power. The Rump, generally hated and despised, but
still the only body in the country which had any show of legal
authority, returned again to the house from which it had been twice
ignominiously expelled.

In the mean time
Monk was advancing towards London. Wherever he came, the gentry
flocked round him, imploring him to use his power for the
purpose of restoring peace and liberty to the distracted nation.
The General, coldblooded, taciturn, zealous for no polity and
for no religion, maintained an impenetrable reserve. What were
at this time his plans, and whether he had any plan, may well be
doubted. His great object, apparently, was to keep himself, as
long as possible, free to choose between several lines of action.
Such, indeed, is commonly the policy of men who are, like him,
distinguished rather by wariness than by farsightedness. It
was probably not till he had been some days in the capital that
he had made up his mind. The cry of the whole people was for a
free Parliament; and there could be no doubt that a Parliament
really free would instantly restore the exiled family. The Rump
and the soldiers were still hostile to the House of Stuart. But the
Rump was universally detested and despised. The power of the
soldiers was indeed still formidable, but had been greatly
diminished by discord. They had no head. They had recently been, in
many parts of the country, arrayed against each other. On the very
day before Monk reached London, there was a fight in the
Strand between the cavalry and the infantry. An united army had
long kept down a divided nation; but the nation was now united,
and the army was divided. During a short
time the dissimulation or irresolution of Monk kept all parties
in a state of painful suspense. At length he broke silence, and
declared for a free Parliament.

As soon as his
declaration was known, the whole nation was wild with delight.
Wherever he appeared thousands thronged round him, shouting and
blessing his name. The bells of all England rang joyously: the
gutters ran with ale; and, night after night, the sky five miles
round London was reddened by innumerable bonfires. Those Presbyterian
members of the House of Commons who had many years before been
expelled by the army, returned to their seats, and were hailed
with acclamations by great multitudes, which filled Westminster
Hall and Palace Yard. The Independent leaders no longer dared to
show their faces in the streets, and were scarcely safe
within their own dwellings. Temporary provision was made for the
government: writs were issued for a general election; and then
that memorable Parliament, which had, in the course of twenty
eventful years, experienced every variety of fortune, which had
triumphed over its sovereign, which had been enslaved and
degraded by its servants, which had been twice ejected and twice
restored, solemnly decreed its own dissolution.

The result of the
elections was such as might have been expected from the temper of
the nation. The new House of Commons consisted, with
few exceptions, of persons friendly to the royal family. The
Presbyterians formed the majority.

That there would
be a restoration now seemed almost certain; but whether there
would be a peaceable restoration was matter of painful doubt. The
soldiers were in a gloomy and savage mood. They hated the
title of King. They hated the name of Stuart. They hated
Presbyterianism much, and Prelacy more. They saw with bitter indignation
that the close of their long domination was approaching, and
that a life of inglorious toil and penury was before them. They
attributed their ill fortune to the weakness of some generals, and
to the treason of others. One hour of their beloved Oliver
might even now restore the glory which had departed.
Betrayed, disunited, and left without any chief in whom they could
confide, they were yet to be dreaded. It was no light thing to encounter
the rage and despair of fifty thousand fighting men,
whose backs no enemy had ever seen. Monk, and those with whom he
acted, were well aware that the crisis was most perilous. They
employed every art to soothe and to divide the discontented
warriors. At the same time vigorous preparation was made for a
conflict. The army of Scotland, now quartered in London, was kept
in good humour by bribes, praises, and promises. The wealthy
citizens grudged nothing to a redcoat, and were indeed so liberal
of their best wine, that warlike saints were sometimes seen in
a condition not very honourable either to their religious or to
their military character. Some refractory regiments Monk
ventured to disband. In the mean time the greatest exertions were
made by the provisional government, with the strenuous aid of
the whole body of the gentry and magistracy, to organise the
militia. In every county the trainbands were held ready to march;
and this force cannot be estimated at less than a hundred and twenty
thousand men. In Hyde Park twenty thousand citizens, well
armed and accoutred, passed in review, and showed a spirit which
justified the hope that, in case of need, they would fight
manfully for their shops and firesides. The fleet was heartily with the
nation. It was a stirring time, a time of anxiety, yet of
hope. The prevailing opinion was that England would be
delivered, but not without a desperate and bloody struggle, and that
the class which had so long ruled by the sword would perish by
the sword.

Happily the
dangers of a conflict were averted. There was indeed one moment of
extreme peril. Lambert escaped from his confinement, and
called his comrades to arms. The flame of civil war was actually
rekindled; but by prompt and vigorous exertion it was trodden out
before it had time to spread. The luckless imitator of
Cromwell was again a prisoner. The failure of his enterprise damped
the spirit of the soldiers; and they sullenly resigned
themselves to their fate.

The new
Parliament, which, having been called without the royal writ, is more
accurately described as a Convention, met at Westminster. The
Lords repaired to the hall, from which they had, during more than
eleven years, been excluded by force. Both Houses instantly
invited the King to return to his country. He was proclaimed with
pomp never before known. A gallant fleet convoyed him from
Holland to the coast of Kent. When he landed, the cliffs of Dover
were covered by thousands of gazers, among whom scarcely one
could be found who was not weeping with delight. The journey
to London was a continued triumph. The whole road from Rochester
was bordered by booths and tents, and looked like an interminable
fair. Everywhere flags were flying, bells and music sounding,
wine and ale flowing in rivers to the health of him whose return
was the return of peace, of law, and of freedom. But in the
midst of the general joy, one spot presented a dark and
threatening aspect. On Blackheath the army was drawn up to welcome the
sovereign. He smiled, bowed, and extended his hand graciously to
the lips of the colonels and majors. But all his courtesy was
vain. The countenances of the soldiers were sad and lowering; and
had they given way to their feelings, the festive pageant of
which they reluctantly made a part would have had a mournful and
bloody end. But there was no concert among them. Discord and
defection had left them no confidence in their chiefs or in each
other. The whole array of the City of London was under arms.
Numerous companies of militia had assembled from various parts of the
realm, under the command of loyal noblemen and gentlemen, to
welcome the King. That great day closed in peace; and the
restored wanderer reposed safe in the palace of his ancestors.

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